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Selfridges (London)
by Whizz11
One of my favourite shops on Oxford Street.
No visit to London shopping is complete without a visit to Selfridges. According to an article I read, it was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and was opened on 15 March 1909. It was ... named the world's best department store in 2010 and I can see why. It is way less pretentious than Harrods and doesn't take itself too seriously whilst still being the foremost shop for luxury and good service.
The first thing you notice about Selfridges as you walk up Oxford Street is the lovely building it is housed in. This London store was designed by Daniel Burnham, who also crafted Marshall Field's main store in his home town of Chicago. It has amazing windows and the displays in the windows are worth window shopping just to see them. At Christmas the windows are absolutely beautiful and really draw you into the shop just to have a look around at all the Christmas bits. I remember every year when I was younger making an annual Christmas trip to Selfridges to see Father Christmas in his grotto. The store always did such a good job of creating such lovely displays that you walked around at then at the end Santa was waiting for you with a little present, every little kids fantasy and dream and a really nice memory I have from my childhood even today.
Being a girl by far my favourite destination in this shop is now the shoe gallery!! A whole area dedicated to shoes, shoes and more shoes, expensive shoes, way out of price price range shoes, beautiful shoes, ugly shoes and affordable shoes. The shoe gallery has now been open for a year and it has attracted a lot of visitors, not just me! It really is something to behold and in my opinion has been perfectly designed, you feel like you are in an art gallery rather than a shoe store. According to the Selfridges website, there are 55,000 shoes in stock at any one time and 4,000 shoes on display from over 150 brands. The gallery was actually designed by an architect, Jamie Fobert and in the past year they have sold over 500,000 pairs of shoes and been voted the best shoe department in the world. I would definitely agree with this!
What I like about Selfridges is that it has some amazing brands and expensive brands but it also has clothes for us regular people as well. I can walk around and dream about all the Jimmy Choo shoes or DVF wrap dresses I could buy if I was rich and then settle upon a dress that is actually in my price range but unlike Harrods yoga re never made to feel that you don't quite belong in the shop.
One thing I don't like in here as much as I do in Harrods is the food hall. Don't get me wrong the food hall is still sumptuous and stunning and full of amazing cases full of lovely food but it's not quite the destination that the Harrods food hall is. That said there are loads of lovely places to eat in this shop. One of my favourites is the Yo Sushi branch in the food hall. It's a bit small and hard to find a place to sit and eat on one of the stools but you can buy to take away as well which is nice.
Selfridges is like a destination in itself in that you could literally spend your whole day shopping here and really not have to leave at all to go to any other shops. You can eat, drink, use the facilities and do all your shopping under one roof. Make a purchase to experience what it is like to carry one of their exclusive yellow bags and enjoy your day!
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Trafford Centre (Manchester)
by Whizz11
Last weekend I took a trip to Manchester to go and visit a friend and to also go Flower Girl Dress shopping for her wedding. Probably not one of my best ideas given that I was taking said flower girl in question who is 21 months old and being 8 and a half months pregnant that the thought of shopping at the Trafford Centre on a busy ... Saturday afternoon was not too exciting but I was happy to go given that I was spending time with my friend and I was also excited to go to The Trafford Centre as I had never been before.
To quote an article I read, "The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and leisure complex situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford inGreater Manchester, close to the Trafford Park industrial estate and approximately 5 miles from Manchester city centre."
It was built tin 1998 and still looks brand new to me. It has a wonderful Las Vegas style about it, all glitzy and glamorous with water fountains, intricate decorations and of course lots of dressed up Northeners. Apparently, The Trafford Centre also has £5.8 million of marble and granite flooring. The marble flooring are polished every night along with rails giving the shopping centre an opulent style. There are a lot of domes around on the ceilings and it very much reminded me of The Cesears Palace Hotel in Las Vegas if anyone has ever been there. The article I read went on to say that, "Ten percent of the UK population live within a 45-minute drive of the shopping centre, which attracts more than 35 million visits annually. It has Europe's largest food court in The Orient and the UK's busiest cinema, attracting over 28,500 visitors each week. There are over 10,000 car parking spaces.
Now, given the fact that it has over 10,000 car parking spaces you would have though it would be easy to find a space, right? Wrong!! It took us about 15 minutes of driving around to find a space when we got there, ok it was a Saturday afternoon but eventually we did find someone after someone pulled out. This is open air parking and covered parking and we found some covered parking which was nice as it was raining. I like the fact that the parking as free as a lot of shopping centres now are going the paid parking route and I think this will detract from people visiting. The car park pillars were numbered to help us find our car again which was nice. To get into the shopping centre we had to go up some escalators and we found ourselves on the top floor.
By far my favourite shop in here was the Selfridges. Already a favourite store of mine as I visit the one in London quite a bit, this one was also just as luxurious and nice. What I liked about it was that it was somewhat quiet compared to the rest of the shopping centre, I guess as it's expensive it's not everyones first port of call. There is a really nice beauty section where my friends mum had a make up trial for her wedding and they gave her a really thorough explanation of everything and let me sit down on one of their make up chairs as baby was starting to get heavy after all the shopping.
There was a really nice selection of shops here, nothing too high end but all of your major fashion retailers such as Coast, Gap, Debenhams, Reiss, River Island, Monsoon, Topshop to name but a few. They are all well laid out and inviting albeit very crowded on a Saturday. The toilets were lovely too, really nice and clean and I didn't have to wait in a queue once for the toilet which at 8 and a half months pregnant is definitely a plus.
Although we did not eat in it the food court was something to behold. Called The Orient it was massive and featured just about every type of restaurant and food you could want, TGI Fridays, Mexican, Spanish, Japanese. In the end we just grabbed a sandwich to go from M&S as we were on a mission but if I lived nearer here this would be somewhere where I would definitely come just to eat and enjoy a day/night out.
Well, we never did find a flower girl dress, I ended up ordering one from the Next catalogue but I found the Trafford Centre to be an experience in itself and that's before you even begin to go shopping.
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Liverpool One
by poppypink1
Liverpool ONE is a huge 1.65 million sq ft of shopping and leisure, which includes 160 shops, more than 20 bars and restaurants, a fantastic 14 screen cinema and a 5 acre park. Liverpool ONE is very easy to get to, there is a bus station there and a car park (which is very expensive) and it is easy to walk to from Liverpool Central ... station and Liverpool Lime Street.
There is a wide variety of shops and services that caters for absolutely everyone at Liverpool ONE. The only downfall being that the shops aren't under cover so you have to make sure you bring an umbrella on a cloudy day! Some of the stores include menswear such as All Saints, Jack Jones, Zara etc. Womenswear stores include New Look, H&M, Lipsy and Warehouse and plenty more. Liverpool ONE also caters for children including stores such as Build-a-Bear Factory, Disney Store and Pumpkin Patch. There is even a crazy golf now as you go up the escalators to the restaurants which is suitable for children and adults! Or why not shop for everyone at the two leading department stores John Lewis and Debenhams! Not only does Liverpool ONE have clothes shops, but there are also shops that men can have a wander off too if they can't be bothered shopping with their partners such as Game and HMV to browse or buy one of the latest DVD or a game, the Apple Store if you want to have a play on the latest gadgets, Waterstone's or WH Smith for books or stationary and Habitat for homewear. There are plenty of phone stores including Orange, o2 and 3. Liverpool ONE also offer jewellery stores such as H M Samuel and the latest fashion must have Pandora. Cafe's and coffee shops are always nearby including the famous Starbucks or Costa, there's also Cafe Nero not far away.
When you have done all your shopping, you can take the escalators to the top floor of Liverpool ONE where there are lots of restaurants to choose from. Being from Liverpool myself I come to Liverpool ONE every weekend with my boyfriend and we are always spoilt for choice when we are picking someone to go for our tea! Our favourite is Nandos and then we always pop into the Odeon to watch the most recent films. Other restaurants in Liverpool ONE include Pizza Hut, YO! Sushi, Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge (which is another favourite of mine), Zizzi, Pesto, Yee Rah, Red Hot Buffet, Las Iguanas (which offer really nice cocktails) and just a few more. Just across the walk ways is Chavasse Park, there is always events and things going on around Christmas and the Summer here including rides and even a beach fitted with a bar and a little pool!
I do all my shopping in Liverpool ONE and after visiting the likes of Manchester City Centre and the Trafford Centre which is a few miles away, I would still say the Liverpool ONE is the best.
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